July 15, 2010

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After a long and closely watched campaign, POLITICO’s Carol E. Lee won her bid for the at-large board seat of the White House Correspondents Association.

The competition was fierce, as Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz wrote in his only slightly tongue-in-cheek feature on the process.

But the real race is for the "at large" seat, coveted by [Bloomberg reporter Hans] Nichols, Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal and Carol Lee of Politico.

"My expectation was that I would be running unopposed," Meckler said, half-jokingly. "I never thought there would be such an intense campaign."

Each candidate has sent out a mission statement. Nichols positioned himself as the populist. ("I sit in the basement, where I belong," he wrote.) Meckler staked out the experienced-candidate ground. ("I've worked in Washington for 14 years," she wrote, describing herself as a "tough" but also "nice person" who called for a "summer picnic for actual WH reporters and officials.") Lee's bullet points announced her strictly business approach. ("I'm at the White House every day, all day," she wrote, emphasizing her "can-do attitude.")

The candidates have spent hours upon hours delivering personal pitches on the sidelines of the briefing room, over coffee or on the phone. They have sent e-mails, in many cases multiple e-mails, to members who haven't voted. Lee's Politico colleague Kendra Marr built her campaign a Facebook page.

Let’s hear it for Facebook. Congratulations, Carol.

In other results, CNN’s Ed Henry won the TV seat and the WHCA presidency from 2012-2013 and Time’s Michael Scherer won the magazine seat.